It is well known to provide a seat belt retractor having first and second belt reels which are mounted side-by-side within a retractor housing situated between the driver and passenger seats. Such a retractor is advantageously employed in passive restraint systems in which the ends of the belts wound by the first and second reels are attached respectively to the driver and passenger doors. Accordingly, movement of the doors between the open and closed positions will automatically move the belts between occupant restraining positions and occupant ingress and egress positions.
One such prior art dual reel retractor is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,300,731, issued Nov. 17, 1981 to Joseph D. Kondziola. In that retractor a separate pendulum is provided for actuating each of the locking pawls associated with the dual reels.
It would be desirable in dual reel retractors to have a single pendulum for actuating the locking pawls of both reels. One difficulty involved in having a single pendulum actuate the locking pawls associated with different reels is that the separate rotation of the reels may result in the ratchet teeth of the first reel being aligned with its locking pawl for proper locking engagement thereby while the ratchet teeth of the second reel may have a tip-to-tip alignment with the locking pawl so that the tip of the tooth blocks the pawl from obtaining its condition of locking engagement simultaneous with the locking engagement of the first reel.